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Bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression is a severe mental illness causing extreme mood swings between mania and depression. It affects approximately two million Americans, or one in 100 adults and both women and men are bi polar disorder sufferers. Children, adolescents and adults are known to suffer from this debilitating mental disorder. Diagnosis of bi polar disorder can be tricky since bipolar symptoms can mimic many other types of mental illness in both children and adults. Adolescents in particular can prove difficult to diagnose since this age group often experiences mood swings and unpredictable behaviours even without the influence of a mental disorder.There are many different medications that are used to treat bi polar disorder. Frequently, a combination of these medications is most effective and can even be essential to properly treat the disorder. The most classic and oldest drug known to treat bipolar symptoms is lithium. Lithium is a type of salt that interacts with the body’s natural chemistry to in order to act as a mood stabilizer. Its effect on people with bi polar disorder tendsto vary widely. Since it is an old drug it is not used as often as newer and more effective drugs on the market today.Other medications used to treat bipolar disorder symptoms are mood stabilizers. Mood stabilizers help prevent extreme mood swings and provide a more even temperament in the patient. There are many different kinds of mood stabilizers. They also tend to have anticonvulsant effects and may be used solely to treat patients suffering from seizures. Other anticonvulsant drugs may be prescribed to a person with bipolar symptomsto ensure a suppression of seizure.Anti-psychotic drugs prevent bipolar disorder patients from experiencing hallucinations that are both visual and audio in nature. Visual hallucinations can be seen whereas audio hallucinations are heard, often as voices in the patient’s head. Anti-psychotic drugs can also function to suppress angry outbursts and physically aggressive behaviours in the bipolar patient.All of these medications have varying effects on different people. In bi polar children for instance it can be quite risky to use an anti-depressant without a mood stabilizer since manic behaviours can intensify quite easily. The drug lithium may prove effective with one patient’s bipolar symptomsyet be ineffective with another. The same is true of all bi polar disorder medications. It is usually through trial and error in terms of drug type and dosage that a sufferer of bipolar disorder reaches an acceptable type and dosage of medical treatment.